Star Wars Cartoon ‘The Bad Batch’ Is Still a So-So Continuation of ‘Clone Wars’
No fan of the early-2000s Star Wars prequels could resist the career arc of Dave Filoni. A veteran of Nickelodeon’s beloved Avatar: The Last Airbender, the animation director was plucked by George Lucas to work on the Clone Wars animated TV series that followed the conclusion of the prequel trilogy (but took place during it). Rather than holding his nose or nudging the show away from the divisive movies that inspired it, Filoni embraced the prequels and helped to further expand their world. Whether he actively rehabbed the Star Wars franchise or just kept the faith while the fanbase underwent its usual mutations, his devotion helped sustain the series during its decade between live-action movies. Now he has extra cred as a higher-up at Lucasfilm who has actually worked closely with Lucas. The Star Wars empire by nature moves in multiple directions at once, but Filoni is the unofficial keeper of the prequel era.
This also means that many of his pet projects are tied to both the figurative and franchise past. The animated series The Bad Batch, for example, is both a Clone Wars spinoff and a sidelong follow-up to Revenge of the Sith—a sequel to the midquel of the prequels, if you will. It follows a ragtag squad of modified clone soldiers, first introduced on Clone Wars, as they navigate the aftermath of the Galactic Empire’s takeover, wherein most clones obediently turned against their various Jedi commanders (and also, you know, democracy). In some ways, this story fills in corners and timelines of the Star Wars galaxy with the imagination and detail to which fans have become accustomed. In others, it feels like a protracted echo of Revenge of the Sith without that film’s doomy momentum—a series that’s mostly about pieces of the already-seen next phase falling into place.
The first half of the third and final season (premiering Feb. 21 on Disney+) skews more toward the latter, although really, signs of the end have been there since the beginning; the series never had much of a chance to revel in the group’s halcyon days of brotherhood and adventure. The Bad Batch itself (all voiced by Dee Bradley Baker) started diminishing almost immediately, with the marksman known as Crosshair ditching his “brothers” for the Empire as ordered in the first season, and the tech guru known as, uh, Tech dying to help the others out of a tight spot in the second. That leaves only leader Hunter, demolitions expert Wrecker, and slightly cybernetic Echo, who is more of a part-timer at this point. Even adding in scrappy teen girl clone Omega (Michelle Ang), they’re still one-third of a proper dirty dozen.